Perhaps you should remind these Canadians of that, that there is no carbon tax in California.
Clinton? Was he Smokey the Bear? Remember that campaign? Only you can prevent forest fires? You know why that went away? They go back to what, the 70s, or is it the '60s, or is it back to the time of Roosevelt?
Anyways, no, it doesn't go back to the 1990s - Southern California has had a Fire-Dependent Ecosystem going back millions of years. All right, it probably shifted downward south a bit during the Ice Ages, but basically same deal.
Some species like Manzanita have seeds evolved to sprout after fire. The cones of Pinyon pines won't even open to release their seeds unless they're charred by fire. They'll just hang there for years, all closed up, until fire passes through.
What has happened that led to what we've been seeing in more recent years is that fire suppression, while well intended for obvious reasons (as seen on the news today), ended up building up tinder in ecosystems like Southern California or in the Florida Pine Barrens, so rather than the occasional fire scorching some areas and regenerating them in the process, we've ended up with vast amounts of acreage getting burned at once.
Caption this Meme
